About 10 years down the line India´s energy sector seems to have turned around from an era of scarcity and now faces the problem of plenty, with over 25,000 MW of capacity lying idle or underutilised. The sad part is that states are not acquiring or buying power to be able to give their residents uninterrupted power supply.

For several decades now, the power sector has focused its activity on the augmentation of its generation capacity in order to cope with burgeoning demand. So far, all eggs have been going into the production basket. However, it now seems that a vital link in this ecosystem has been largely ignored: that is, addressing our inadequate power evacuation infrastructure. This is the Achilles´ heel of the Indian power sector.

With our discoms posting staggering losses and drowning in debt, UDAY is geared towards achieving tangible goals with a sensible method that represents a multi-pronged approach to rid the sector of its chronic ailments.

Though a free energy resource, wind is much intermittent than solar, with speeds varying within minutes and affecting power generation. In cases of high speeds, there can be overloading of generator. Besides this, wind energy is harnessed through turbines - the setting up of which require research, technical know-how and most importantly land.

The growth in the wind sector has been aided by tremendous improvement in wind turbine technology with a select few turbine manufacturers offering the latest 2 MW Wind Turbine Generator (WTG) platform.

State governments are now allowed to subscribe to Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY), this financial year too. The Cabinet approved the extension of UDAY, which earlier had a deadline of March 2016.

Smart Metering is still at the nascent stage in India, where it is being tested and implemented by only a few utilities equipped with the money and technology to do so. However, it provides a sea of possibilities in streamlining and advancing our home energy infrastructure.

The Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme is aimed at bringing ailing power distribution companies (discoms) to a state of operational efficiency, with state governments taking over up to 75 per cent of their respective discoms´ debt and issuing sovereign bonds to pay back the lenders